


Open Mic Night

by KillianJones32



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Fluff, M/M, Meet through mutual friends, college students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-31
Updated: 2017-05-31
Packaged: 2018-11-07 10:40:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11057247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillianJones32/pseuds/KillianJones32
Summary: Of course Dean knows that this Seamus guy is allegedly an extremely talented singer and while he doesn’t doubt Hannah and Neville’s music tastes, well maybe he doubts Neville’s a bit, he knows they’re slightly biased so he’s interested to see how this turns out and just what this mystery Irish boy is really like.





	Open Mic Night

As Dean makes his way through the crowd at the local Irish bar, he can’t help but be surprised that the place is so crowded just for an open mic night.

The bar is small enough, a counter at the back with two smiling bartenders behind it and a makeshift stage at the top of the room with a microphone stand in the centre, waiting to be used.

Faces blur together and Dean tries to recognise Neville or Hannah from the countless strangers standing around him holding their cool glasses and laughing over something or another.

Thankfully Dean’s height is an advantage in this situation and he soon spots Hannah’s blonde hair from where she sits on a high stool at a small round table in the corner of the room.

“Dean!” Hannah exclaims when she sees him, “So happy you made it!”

Dean smiles and accepts the hug she offers him before patting Neville on the back and taking a seat on the bar stool beside him.

“Thanks, it’s good to see you both” Dean says truthfully, “And thanks for inviting me, I needed to get out of that apartment for awhile.”

Dean loved his cardboard box of an apartment, it was tiny as the bedroom, sitting room and kitchen were all just one large room but at least there was another room for the bathroom and he may have prioritised another room to be his own personal art studio.

But the apartment was his and he adored it, especially after Luna came over and helped him paint murals on the walls after he first moved in at the start of the year.

He’d bought the place the summer after his second year in art college and moved in a week before semester started for his third year. He’s just entering the last month of his third year now and he can’t believe how fast the years have flown by. It seems like only yesterday he was a bundle of nerves on his first day sitting in that classroom, staring at all the canvases and drawing desks and a girl who Dean would soon learn was Luna Lovegood turned in her seat and offered him the seat next to hers.

Shortly after that he was introduced to Neville and about six months later, Hannah entered the picture as Neville’s new girlfriend and she was the reason why they were all here tonight.

“No problem.” Hannah grins, “Trust me you won’t regret it, Shay is an amazing singer.”

“Hannah’s right” Neville chimes in, a common phrase used by both Neville and himself, “Seamus really is talented, he hasn’t really sung live before though so he’s nervous.”

Hannah’s grin falls slightly and her eyebrows draw together in worry, “Yeah he did seem nervous earlier didn’t he? And he’s not usually the type to get nervous.”

“Ah he’ll be fine” Neville says confidentially, “I can’t believe you haven’t met Seamus yet Dean, we’ve known him as long as we’ve known you and he’s always at our place, you sure you never met him?”

“Positive” Dean says.

He’s heard a lot about this Seamus Finnigan.

He knows he studied childcare for his first year as that’s how he met Hannah before Hannah went on to study Nursing and Seamus went on to study primary teaching. He knows he moved here from Ireland for college and that he and Neville and Hannah always hang out but for some reason it never works out for the four of them to all meet up together.

Neville and Hannah have thrown a few parties that they were both invited to but for two of them Seamus was back home in Ireland while Dean was able to attend and for the other one Dean had still been studying for exams while the others had finished theirs.

Of course he also knows that this Seamus guy is allegedly an extremely talented singer and while he doesn’t doubt Hannah and Neville’s music tastes, well maybe he doubts Neville’s a bit, he knows they’re slightly biased so he’s interested to see how this turns out and just what this mystery Irish boy is really like.

“Well you’ll get to meet him tonight” Hannah says brightly, “I think you two will really get along but anyway I’m going to go get a drink, you guys want anything?”

Neville and Dean both ask for beers and Dean has to fight Hannah briefly as he insists on paying for the drinks but eventually Hannah takes his money and walks away to the bar, shaking her head.

“I’m glad you came out tonight” Neville says, smiling at Dean genuinely, “I was worried you’d stay at home working on your art assignment again.”

Dean laughs, “No, no, I’ve just one more piece to do and I’m going to draw my sister for it so I’ll wait until I go home next weekend to see her and I’ll draw it then.”

“I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to give up her weekend and pose for her big brother.” Neville chuckles

Dean scoffs, “Yeah right, nah it’s payback for me going to some over 18s concert with her last month so she has to do it.”

They laugh again and are in the middle of discussing Neville’s recent exams when Hannah comes back with their drinks.

As soon as she sits down a man hops up onto the stage that’s only about half a metre in height and the bar hushes as he taps on the microphone and announces that the ‘exciting night you have all been waiting for’ is about to begin.

Neville and Dean throw each other amused looks before turning back to the stage to watch the tall pretty Asian girl with short bubble-gum pink hair turn some mediocre pop song that was always on the radio a few months ago into a rap and while it was extremely strange, her voice was good and the change in the song worked well and the whole bar clapped and cheered when she finished.

Three acts pass by quickly after that, well the second wasn’t quick, more like agonizingly painful and Hannah drank half her wine just to get through it but Dean supposes it took confidence to get up there even if they weren’t the best so he had to credit them with that.

The next person to get up on stage was a short guy about the same age as himself. The sandy haired boy wore a dark grey t-shirt with a red and black chequered shirt unbuttoned over it with skinny black jeans and worn runners.

The boy had a guitar in his hands and sat on the chair behind the microphone stand and adjusted it so the microphone was at the right height to his lips.

Dean can’t help but notice that he’s quite good looking. 

Hannah nudges him and mouths, ‘That’s him!’ pointing to the stage where the boy was smiling and opening his mouth to speak.

“Eh hey” The boy says into the microphone, eyes scanning the room and when his eyes find Neville’s, Dean can see the boy’s shoulders relax slightly, “So I’m going to be singing a cover of ‘Take Me To Church’ by Hozier and well I hope you like it.”

Five seconds pass before Seamus strums his guitar string with his fingertips before he opens his mouth and starts singing.

Dean can’t count how many times he’s heard this song before.

It was one of his favourite songs after it was first released, it was always on the radio when he drove home on the weekends and Dean wouldn’t be surprised if it’s still on his ‘Relax’ playlist on his phone.

But he’s never heard the song sung the way Seamus sings it right now.

For one he sings it in an acoustic style with his fingers picking at the different strings instead of playing them up and down together continuously and his voice is in Dean’s opinion slightly deeper than the original singer’s.

But God is his voice beautiful. 

Dean has never felt himself get so lost in a song, in someone’s voice than right in those few moments.

Every now and then Seamus looks over to their table, possibly needing some courage from his friends to get through the song and on more than one occasion his eyes linger on Dean, probably wondering who he is and why he’s sitting with his friends but Dean can’t even think of smiling encouragingly at him because if he wasn’t already lost in that voice, he would have lost any train of thought and sense of direction when he looked into those clear blue eyes.

Those blue eyes that sparkled with happiness as he sang and Dean could just tell that Seamus loved singing and playing the guitar and wasn’t just doing it because he was good at it.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, the singing and strumming came to a slow, steady stop and not even a second passes before the previously still pub erupted in claps and cheers, the loudest coming from Dean and his table.

Seamus blushed so brightly that Dean could see it from across the room and he muttered a ‘Thank you’ into the microphone before hurrying off stage.

That doesn’t stop the room from clapping however and they don’t stop until the next singer comes on stage with his ukulele.

Dean can’t pay much attention to him though as his mind is still on Seamus and his breath-taking voice. He feels a blush rising in his cheeks at that thought. He was never the type of person to have a crush on someone at first sight but then again he’d heard so much about Seamus for the past few months, he feels like they’ve been friends for months even though they never met.

Dean’s pulled out of his thoughts a minute later, but not by the decent singer’s ukulele strumming; no instead it’s by Neville’s voice saying “Seamus! It was a great performance, well done!”

Dean turns and there’s Seamus, his cheeks are red but his lips are pulled into a bright grin.

“Thanks Nev, hey Hannah and you must be Dean!” Seamus greets him cheerily and Dean has to learn how to breathe when Seamus looks straight into his eyes while wearing that wide grin, “It’s nice to finally meet you, these two talk about you ALL the time.”

Dean finally snaps himself out of Seamus’s unknown spell and smiles, shaking Seamus’s outstretched hand, “Thanks, it’s lovely to meet you too. You sang beau-really well. Honestly you’re very talented.”

Seamus blushes further, “Ha not sure about that now but thanks.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never met each other before” Hannah says and Neville nods

“Yeah me either” Seamus replies before Dean can think of what to say, “But I feel like I already know you which is so weird-“

“No, no I feel the same” Dean says hurriedly before inwardly cringing, “Neville and Hannah talk about you a lot too”

Dean looks over and catches Neville and Hannah sharing one of their knowing looks and part of him dreads the thought of this being a set up but the other embarrassing part of him wouldn’t be too upset if it was.

Dean doesn’t even hear the other singers come on and off stage because for the rest of the night he’s enthralled in conversation with Seamus in what seems like their own little bubble.

They talk about everything including their courses and Dean learns that Seamus just finished his six week work placement in a primary school where all the kids were apparently adorable except until it came to art class on Fridays.

“Paint would be thrown across the room, crayon drawings on the walls!” Seamus laughs, “It was a nightmare!”

Dean sniggers, “Well thankfully there’s nobody in my course doing that.”

“Oh? Oh that’s right Neville said you were studying art! Do you like it? Well I mean of course you like it you chose it but are you happy you made the right decision?”

Dean nods and smiles because of Seamus’s clear genuine interest, “Yeah, yeah I’m really happy with it, I love it. It’s a lot of hard work but it’s worth it.”

“Wow, yeah I think art’s such a beautiful talent but I’ve always been rubbish at it. Doodling in maths class was all I could ever accomplish.”

Dean snorts, “Well your talent is clearly singing! I mean that up there was just…God you could just forget about primary teaching, walk into a record company, sing a verse and be singed to a contract within an hour.”

Seamus throws back his head and laughs loudly.

“I doubt that now.”

“Well I don’t” Dean says honestly, “You’ve got a real talent.”

Seamus smiles softly now and leans a little closer, barely even noticeable but Dean catches it.

“Well I can’t wait to see your art pieces someday. If you’d let me of course, Hannah has told me they’re incredible and I’m sure they are but I’d love to see them for myself.”

Dean swallows, “Yeah, yeah sure you can see them anytime.”

“We could do something tomorrow if you want?” Seamus suggests and it’s the first time tonight when the smile has slipped from his face and he seems almost hesitant.

“Yeah” Dean whispers unconsciously and then he coughs and speaks louder, “I mean sure yeah definitely and I could bring some of my sketches or…or you could come to my place and see them.”

Seamus grins again and that sparkle in his eyes that Dean saw when he was on stage is back with full beautiful force,

“Great, yeah that sounds good, I can’t wait.”

Dean opens his mouth to say ‘Me too’ but is interrupted by Hannah and Neville sitting down with fresh drinks. Seamus and Dean frown at them as they realise that they never noticed the others leaving and Dean wonders just how long they were gone for.

The four of them talk for another hour with Dean and Seamus sneaking looks to one another every few minutes but it’s not until Dean stands up to leave and Seamus insists on walking him out that they get the chance to talk alone again.

“Well it was great to finally meet you” Dean says, trying to postpone the inevitable goodbye. 

“Same to you” Seamus pulls out a pen from his pocket and takes Dean’s hand, “May I?”

Dean isn’t fully sure what Seamus is asking but nods anyway.

Seamus smiles and writes his number on the back of Dean’s hand, his writing is scrawled and not the best but Dean is able to make out the numbers which is all that matters.

“Text me if you still want to meet up tomorrow.”

“I do” Dean replies immediately, “I mean yeah, yeah I will, I’ll text you later.”

Seamus grins, “Okay sounds good.”

“Anything in particular you want to do?” Dean asks

Seamus puts his pen back in his pocket, lets go of Dean’s hand and he bits his lip in thought.

“Surprise me.” Seamus finally answers, taking a few steps back and opening the door to the pub, “I’ll see you tomorrow Dean.”

And just like that he’s gone back inside and Dean is left standing outside under the streetlights with a wide grin plastered onto his face.

Fuck he just can’t wait until tomorrow comes and he can see that pretty boy with the breath-taking singing voice again.

As he walks home, he makes a mental note to remember to thank Neville and Hannah for inviting him to open-mic night and introducing him to Seamus Finnigan.


End file.
